Northwestern 72, Illinois 68 OT POSTGAME

#101      

Fearless Illini

F
Fearless Illini
AllGoodInTheUnderwood said:
He initiated the offense well , but that missed wide open 3, two missed free throws and throwing up that shot in OT in traffic with 3 NU players lost us the game.

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Can't disagree more!! The only reason we were in this game was because of Tejon. He played great, and can't be expected to be perfect. It is not his role to be the offensive catalyst for this team. If there is anyone to blame I put in squarely on the coach's shoulders. This team has been very bad in the half court offense this year! What adjustments has he made to make this team look better in the half court offense whether against zone or man.
A previous post pointed out that it looked like Groce ball...that's exactly what I was thinking during the last 10 minutes of this game!
 
#103      

Deleted member 649710

D
Guest
Deleted member 649710
Smith did not get much tick because he got himself into foul trouble early, and then TJL, Alstork and Williams were playing really well late.
 
#104      

Dan

Dan
Admin
Dan
[youtube]OyLb2U447W0[/youtube]
[youtube]33--gN8ch0I[/youtube]
[youtube]ioHm3ALchB4[/youtube]
 
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#105      

Fearless Illini

F
Fearless Illini
aluma said:
Smith didn't play because AJ, Williams, Alstork, and Lucas offered us the best defenders at the end of the game. Smith is a good player and will be great eventually, but these other guys play much better defense than he does right now. My only beef with Underwood is not calling a timeout when we had the ball just before Lucas got triple teamed. I hate that Alstork and Lucas both forced a shot. I felt a drawn up play to get A.J the ball and to shoot a 3 to win the game would've been the best scenario. Finke absolutely played horrible tonight and has to give us more if we want to win some games. 2 pts. and 4 rebounds for how many minutes he played is horrendous.
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Not sure why everyone is banging on Finke. How many touches did he have this game? How many touches did he truelly have in a scoring position. I can't remember many!! I keep hearing Underwood call him one of the elite shooters in he country!! If you really think he is the give him the call in positions to score!!!!
 
#106      

Fearless Illini

F
Fearless Illini
IlliniRunIn07 said:
Yeah Finke has been extremely disappointing the past two games. But you do realize that Black and Alstork were our #1 and #2 scorers tonight. They were also our #1 and #3 rebounders tonight. Alstork also led the team in assists. I wish they would chill on the turnovers a bit, but other than that this is a weird postgame thread to call them out on.
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I know this may sound crazy to most.. but I would like to see Alstork run the point when Tejon is not in the game. He is a much better player offensively when he has the ball in his hands more. I think we seen that tonight!
 
#107      

Fearless Illini

F
Fearless Illini
winthiscentury said:
If he wants to be a major contributor, he has to get down in the post and get more physical. We can't have him standing at the three point line waiting. He needs to be an inside/outside threat. Right now, he doesn't do a whole lot to make himself a factor in these games.
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Thats not Underwood's system for him to be hanging around in the low post. He is either in the pinch post or playing position less basketball.
 
#108      

TCTORNADO

TCTORNADO
TCTORNADO
The game tonight was a step or 2 too fast on both ends for Finke. He will struggle in the future with games of this nature. Underwood's push the tempo on both ends is not well suited for him. I hope we can make adjustments somehow for his lack of quickness. We need his 3's and his rebounding to be successful. This was a high intensity level game tonight. If we play like this in the future, we are going to surprise a lot of people. BTW, the Orange presence was 2-1 tonight.
 
#109      

DoctorOrange

D
Chicago, IL
DoctorOrange
Can’t win when your best three-point shooter only shoots one three-pointer the entire game. Need to get open. End of story.
 
#110      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
Pretty much the same two observations from last game...

1) We are extremely thin upfront at 4/5. I know... positionless this and positionless that, but we simply do not have enough in the frontcourt. As much as fans think we can find diamonds in the rough late, reality is that if you end up scrabbling late for size/talent, what you end up with may not be up to par. That is especially true for big men who take longer to develop. Unfortunately, this looks like a problem for next year as well.

2) Unless we upgrade overall talent, the bar will remain on just making the tournament every single year. I know the popular belief around here that talent has not been the problem, yada, yada, yada... with good coaching etc., etc., etc. but to consistently win and compete in the B1G we need a serious upgrade beyond talent levels in the last 12 years (with the lone exception of 2010-11).
 
#111      

brillinian

B
brillinian
So, 4 things in this game lead to our downfall, IMO. One, we have only one shooter as of now, AJ. Nobody else on this team can hit anything from 3 pt land. Two, they had 4 guys that could knock down the 3 ball and did so tonite. Three, we have no idea how to play against a zone. First time we went zone ourselves, NW passed in to high post, kicked out to a wide open 3 pt shooter, BAM. And four, something nobody else has pointed out in this thread yet that I thought was huge at the time and given the outcome of the game, I was correct. That is in the first half, we were up 7 when LAW went to the bench with his 3rd foul. I thought at the time, man now's our chance to really stretch this lead because he was carrying them in the first half. Instead, we managed to get outscored by 3 the last 6 minutes of the half. That was big and a real disappointment to me.
 
#112      

Tacomallini

T
Washington State
Tacomallini
PlayAZ said:
Williams - Cream rises to the top, and this kid is doing it, again he would of challenged for Mr Basketball...all around our best freshman to date.

Smith - Offensively as a freshman, he will get his...defense he will get lazy foul or over aggressive foul calls against him this year.

Lucas - Took over this team tonight, with or without the last possession....why was the final timeout not used?

Finke - Disappeared tonight, have to figure a way to get him aggressive offensively?

Black - He will be very close to a double double avg by end of the year.

Jordan - Again showed the capacity off the bench to be a playmaker...overall good game.

Frazier - Good minutes without freshman miscues overall.

We will get there, plenty of positives, tonight we just didn't have enough and our half court zone offense killed us.
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Agree with this post 100%. 3 Freshmen, 1 Sophomore and 3 Juniors mentioned here. We have a very young team that will click at some point. Still feeling positive about despite a tough loss in Rosemont.
 
#113      

practispractispractice

P
practispractispractice
Love the fight

but allowing Tejon to dominate the endgame killed us. Love Tejon, but he was trying to make up for missed free throws and went up against tall trees to try and make up for it single handedly.
 
#114      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
Obelix said:
Pretty much the same two observations from last game...

1) We are extremely thin upfront at 4/5. I know... positionless this and positionless that, but we simply do not have enough in the frontcourt. As much as fans think we can find diamonds in the rough late, reality is that if you end up scrabbling late for size/talent, what you end up with may not be up to par. That is especially true for big men who take longer to develop. Unfortunately, this looks like a problem for next year as well.

2) Unless we upgrade overall talent, the bar will remain on just making the tournament every single year. I know the popular belief around here that talent has not been the problem, yada, yada, yada... with good coaching etc., etc., etc. but to consistently win and compete in the B1G we need a serious upgrade beyond talent levels in the last 12 years (with the lone exception of 2010-11).
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Yeah, I firmly believe that the only way out of this hole is recruiting.

We can talk about how BU is some coaching savant all we want, but our talent level is not where it needs to be. I think the future is bright for Smith and Frazier, but reality is starting to set in -- Smith isn't the Jason Kidd that some hyped him to be. He's going to be a good one, but he's got a ways to go.

The front court just isn't Big Ten caliber. Period. And we're going to need to do better than bring in projects and hope they develop over the course of 4 years. Liddell and Okoro are more important than Ayo for that very reason. But they're still two years away. We need a transfer badly.

In general, we'll get there. But we aren't even remotely an NCAA tournament team at this point. The good news is, neither is Northwestern.
 
#115      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
TeamWilliams said:
Unfortunately looks like 3 loses in a row and 4 of 5
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As I said a week ago.

We need to prepare ourselves mentally for the fact that we're going to be fighting for an NIT bid. To me, this season is all about setting up next season.

It's a combination of not enough talent, no front court, and a whole lot of youth. Plus, BU -- as good of a coach as he is -- isn't the miracle worker that I think a lot of people are expecting.
 
#116      

alexander58

A
alexander58
illiniguy24 said:
I’m sorry, was he guarding him all night? No. I’m not saying he played perfect defense, but at least he was guarding without fouling. He had a few clutch steals for us also.

Plus, Lindsey is a premier player in the league.


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This team plays good defense. It’s lightyears ahead of the previous coaches’ . The 72 didn’t lose this game. The 68 did.
 
#117      

TheLegendaryOne24

T
TheLegendaryOne24
Illiniguy13 said:
Stop :hand: Mark Smith is not our best player right now. Making him sit is part of the solution to fix that
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There is no way you can say Smith is not the best player on this team and putting him on the bench kills what small offensive threats we have already and TJL made some shoots but if you are telling me that TeJon and DW are going to take this team and win games in the B10 ... you are entitled to your opinion but that comment is comical
 
#118      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
TheLegendaryOne24 said:
There is no way you can say Smith is not the best player on this team and putting him on the bench kills what small offensive threats we have already and TJL made some shoots but if you are telling me that TeJon and DW are going to take this team and win games in the B10 ... you are entitled to your opinion but that comment is comical
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"There is no way you can say Mark Smith is not the best player on this team".

Really?

3-4 years from now, I think we'll look back and agree that Mark Smith was the best player on this roster. But RIGHT NOW, he is not the best player on this team. Or at least he's not giving us the most all-around production.

Aaron Jordan is probably the top performer at the moment. Leron Black #2. Alstork is more limited offensively, but is playing much better defense -- and that's important. So you can make a reasonable argument that at best, Mark Smith is #4 right now.


All that said......Smith has the highest ceiling, and I really want to see him get as many minutes as possible. But I can understand the logic in sitting him if the defense just isn't there.
 
#119      

TALKTOCHUCK

T
TALKTOCHUCK
TeamWilliams said:
4 of those turnovers I think were Black with a walk. He needs to learn how to dribble on the perimeter.
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Black caused a out 6 turnovers last night. He must be frustrating to coach. The play when Lucas ran the screen into him, he stuck his leg out and tripped the other player, hence offensive foul.

I also agree that Mark Smith is clearly our best player and having him on the bench is a travesty.

Last thing, some of the players are simply not used to the style of play. I see Finke and Alstork having trouble running as hard, as often as they need to to make this system work.

Also I am really really thinking Alstork is going to pop out of his funk and give us something soon and last night may have been the start of him contributing.
 
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#120      

TALKTOCHUCK

T
TALKTOCHUCK
Also Underwood not using a timeout to run a set play (which appears to be his specialty) is the first major in game mistake I have witnessed.
 
#121      

JoeJ

J
JoeJ
Great to be really excited about a close game against a decent team. Shocked that the score stayed 63 all for the last 2:47 of regulation.

Not sure why Smith wasn't out there, assume defense. I have much more faith in BU than the recent staffs. Let's hope this does not change.

I am sure BU will be working on the zone offense. We have struggled against that forever. The defense is the best I can recall for a long time. Considering the amount of youth out there, I am favorably impressed.

I think the team is improving and will continue to improve. Whether this yields results this season, it is too early to say. Depends on how much we improve.

GO ILLINI!
 
#123      

clusterbuster75

C
clusterbuster75
illiniguy24 said:
Not sure why he called timeout before the last two free throws of overtime either, down 2 points. Whether he misses the first or second one, it’s nearly impossible to get a good shot with 2.1 seconds left from the other side of the court


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He didn't call a TO for his team, he called it to make the Mildcat FT shooter have plenty of time to think about it.
 
#124      

Portillos

P
Portillos
I wonder if this will be a poor season with close games that helps the team be really good next year.
 
#125      

clusterbuster75

C
clusterbuster75
Verified Insider said:
"There is no way you can say Mark Smith is not the best player on this team".
.
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I'll say it.. Mark Smith is not the best player on this team.. If we was playing ball and choosing up teams, there is a few other illini I be picking to be on my team before I chose Mark Smith. Nothing against Mark Smith. I'm glad he is on the team. A gifted athlete with great body control, but he still has to learn to play against BIG FOURTEEN competition.